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LIGO Will Make Gravitational Waves Announcement on Thursday

Posted by yaelk on from the making-waves dept.

StartsWithABang writes: When we look out into the Universe, we normally gain information about it by gathering light of various wavelengths. However, there are other possibilities for astronomy, including by looking for the neutrinos emitted by astrophysical sources - first detected in the supernova explosion of 1987 - and in the gravitational waves emitted by accelerating masses. These ripples in the fabric of space were theorized back in the early days of Einstein's General Relativity, and experiments to detect them have been ongoing since the 1960s. However, in September of 2015, Advanced LIGO came online, and it was the first gravitational wave observatory that was expected to detect a real gravitational wave signal. The press conference on Thursday is where the collaboration will make their official announcement, and in the meantime, here's an explainer of what gravitational waves are, what Advanced LIGO can teach us, and how.

9 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Here we go again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    StartsWithABang and his Forbes bullshit again. So much for new management. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    1. Re:Here we go again by Soulskill · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's no contract. Or any communication aside from the actual submissions. If you want different astronomy/science stories on Slashdot, you have easy recourse; submit your own!

  2. Hide Forbes Option? by Chmarr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can I have an option to just hide any articles with links to forbes.com ? That'd be really handy, thanks.

  3. Re:And the announcement will be by RenderSeven · · Score: 4, Funny

    For an announcement, yes. But this was an announcement for an announcement, like a trailer, so the reveal is probably bigger. And no spoilers please. Clearly the NSF and DOE want the VIP's at LIGO in LA, WA and MIT want to keep the PC on the QT, 'cause if it leaks to CNN and MSNBC the UK and EU might cut the GWIC budget PDQ for AIGO and GEO and the VC's would go MIA. And then we'd all be put on KP.

  4. Better non-forbes link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://phys.org/news/2016-02-thursday-einstein-gravitational.html

  5. Solar Neutrinos First by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Informative

    StartsWithABang must think Forbes is a popular science magazine.

    Well it would be nice if he got his science right then. The first astrophysical neutrinos detected came from the sun and were detected by the Homestake Experiment in the late 1960s for which a Nobel Prize was awarded. Those from SN1987a were the first neutrinos detected from a source outside the solar system.

  6. Re:I dunno .. by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a thought, why not wait until Thursday for the actual announcement...

    So that we'll know to go to an actual news site on Thursday instead of waiting until Monday for Slashdot to run it.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  7. non-Forbes link by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Informative

    LIGO Scientists Will Make Gravitational Waves Announcement Thursday

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  8. Link to announcement by XXongo · · Score: 4, Informative

    The actual LIGO Media Advisory is here: http://www.ligo.org/news/media... (with a bunch of links to background info)